The Plains of Patagonia. 231 
this exceedingly complex state, in which we appear 
to be so effectually “ hedged in from harm.” I recall 
here an incident witnessed by a friend of mine of 
an Indian he and his fellow-soldiers were pursuing 
who might easily have escaped unharmed ; but when 
his one companion was thrown to the ground through 
his horse falling, the first Indian turned deliberately, 
sprang to the earth, and, standing motionless by 
the other’s side, received the white men’s bullets. 
Not for love—it would be absurd to suppose such 
a thing—but inspired by that fierce instinctive spirit 
. of defiance which in some cases will actually cause 
aman to go out of his way to seek death. Why 
are we, children of light—the light which makes us 
timid—so strongly stirred by a deed like this, so 
useless and irrational, and feel an admiration so 
great that compared with it that which is called 
forth by the noblest virtue, or the highest achieve- 
ment of the intellect, seems like a pale dim feeling ? 
It is because in our inmost natures, our deepest 
feelings, we are still one with the savage. We 
admire a Gordon less for his godlike qualities—his 
spirituality, and crystal purity of heart, and justice, 
and love of his kind—than for that more ancient 
nobility, the qualities he had in common with the 
wild man of childish intellect, an old Viking, a 
fighting Colonel Burnaby, a Captain Webb who 
madly flings his life away, a vulgar Welsh prize- 
fighter who enters a den full of growling lions, and 
drives them before him like frightened sheep. Itis 
due to this instinctive savage spirit in us, in spite 
